the groundhog day project

Briefly in class tonight we were talking about the "mean-world syndrome"—a part of George Gerbner's Cultivation Theory that tells us basically that the more we watch television, the gloomier our view of the world tends to be. Essentially, we watch TV shows or the news that includes say violence and murder and, while it's entirely unlikely for a lot of us to actually be exposed to such things in real life, we start to think it's more likely because, well, that's what we know . TV becomes reality. That got me to thinking about Groundhog Day because, well, everything gets me thinking about Groundhog Day . And, I wanted to say, basically, that Phil Connors, even pre-loop, is not a bad guy. I tend to think that fundamentally none of us are bad people. But, sometimes only certain actions of ours get a response, so those actions get repeated. And, we don't even need responses to be positive, we just need them to be . Phil's insults get more immediate resul...

In Groundhog Day , two males and one female go from the big city to a tiny hamlet in western Pennsylvania. In The Shining , two males and one female go from living in the big city to a hotel in the mountains of Colorado. In Groundhog Day , the black guy works at the bar. In The Shining , the black guy works in the kitchen. In both films, there's a blizzard, a nice old lady, a bathtub, a bar, and a holiday party. Plus, Phil gets stopped in the hallway by the Chubby Man, who is certainly large enough to contain those twin dead girls. Coincidences? Maybe. Or maybe, just like the crazy folks behind Room 237 think The Shining is Stanley Kubrick's way of admitting that he secretly created the moon landing footage, Groundhog Day was Harold Ramis' way of admitting that he secretly created The Shining . Think about it. Ramis is not known for making adaptations. Nor is he known for making horror films. So, if he were to make one from a beloved Stephen King novel, it would ma...

but I'm only on DayQuil . Still, I find myself reciting lines of dialogue along with the characters and I think I'm running some of these lines a little better than they are. Have I mentioned that Desson Howe at the Washington Post predicted back in 1993 that Groundhog Day "will never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress"? He liked the movie, called it "pretty good" and said that, watching it, you'll feel like you've been through too many days yourself. With its zany daily episodes, "Groundhog" gets stuck in a non-progressive repetition. It's also headed for the usual Hollywood Life Lesson, in which Murray's moral winter must thaw. He also makes some factual errors--and I'm feeling petty as well as sick. For example, he says this: "Ned, I would love to stand here and talk with you," he tells Tobolowsky at their umpteenth chance meeting. "But I'm not going to." First,...

"Everyone takes, everyone gives. Life is like that." - Siddhartha (p. 52) Davies (1995) tells us, "Through its small-town setting and its manipulation of time, [ Groundhog Day ] keeps the most discussed ills of nineties America (gang war in California, sex and violence in the movies) at a distance" (p. 226). In fact, those more serious topics don't even make it out of the opening scene, and the first one is just part of Phil's humorous weather report: Out in California, they’re gonna have some warm weather tomorrow… gang wars and some very overpriced real estate. Up in the Pacific Northwest, as you can see, they’re gonna have some very, very tall trees. It will be clear across the Rockies and the Great Plains, mostly. Sex and violence in the movies--that's a topic that has been with us as long as movies have been, and will still be until we turn as hedonistic as the latter days of the Roman Empire. Actually, then we'll probably still talk abo...

Daughton (1996) argues that by the time of Groundhog Day , the world no longer supported the "traditional masculine belief system" that Phil Connors represents. She calls it "the masculinity of the 19th century" and "no longer functional for men today" (p. 141). She cites Rapping (1994) in assessing the 'juvenilized' version of American manhood [as] Hollywood's answer to a real political crisis in the meaning of masculinity... We live in a world that has made old-fashioned heroism hard to believe in... (p. 141, quoting Rapping, p. 118-9) Daughton suggests the Groundhog Day answer as follows: "In fact, the rhetorical point of Groundhog Day has more to do with its protagonist coming to appreciate the stereotypically feminine focus on connection with others, than with reinscribing the stereotypically masculine individuation and domination glorified in films.... (p. 141) (And, I believe I've quoted that passage before, but I will ...

pa·tri·ar·chy \-ˌär-kē\ noun : a family, group, or government controlled by a man or a group of men : a social system in which family members are related to each other through their fathers Full Definition 1 : social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line; broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power 2 : a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy Other forms: plural pa·tri·ar·chies First use: 1632 Before catching up to where I left off--the movie is on Day 3 as I write this opening--I wanted to mention Barry Brummett's (2015)... (Seriously, this Google Books find has next year as its copyright. On the one hand, that means, I guess, this is an as yet unpublished book. On the other hand, Brummett is writing from the future, and doesn't cite me; this makes me s...

sex·ism \ˈsek-ˌsi-zəm\ noun : unfair treatment of people because of their sex ; especially : unfair treatment of women Full Definition 1 : prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women 2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex sex·ist \ˈsek-sist\ adjective or noun Origin: sex + - ism (as in racism). First use: 1968 mi·sog·y·ny \mə-ˈsä-jə-nē\ noun : a hatred of women miso·gy·nic \ˌmi-sə-ˈji-nik, -ˈgī-\ adjective mi·sog·y·nist \mə-ˈsä-jə-nist\ noun or adjective mi·sog·y·nis·tic \mə-ˌsä-jə-ˈnis-tik\ adjective Origin: Greek misogynia , from misein to hate + gynē woman. First use: circa 1656 Today, a simple listen. I want to find the lines (and situations) in the film that imply one of the above, sexism or misogyny. An obvious one to start: Phil's calling Nan "Hairdo"--i.e. identifying her by a physical attribute that generally indicates gender. Reducing her synecdo...